Jerry Nadler and Doug Collins begin the judiciary phase. |
The Republicans have signalled they're not going to hear the charges against Trump. The allegations of Trump trying to dig dirt on Joe Biden by deliberately denying military funding to Ukraine became a watershed moment for the controversial president.
Wednesday's hearing which will feature constitutional law experts, follows a series of public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee where current and former administration officials testified as a part of the House Democrat-led investigation into the Ukraine scandal.
The controversy began in July. Trump made a call to Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelinsky. He congratulated him on his victory. The former comedian and actor became Ukraine's newest president.
Trump being his usual ignorant self asked for Zelinsky to do him a favor. The favor was to get Ukraine to do investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The House Intelligence Committee has so far led the investigation, but now the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over drafting articles of impeachment.
Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) chair the committees. They will be doing their opening statements and the usual partisan digs at one another.
The witnesses who are going to sworn in include:
Donald and Melania Trump meet Queen Elizabeth II for the third time. The look on Elizabeth's face is priceless. |
For the Democrats: Noah Feldman, Pamela Karlan and Michael Gerhardt.
For the Republicans: Jonathan Turley.
Republicans and Democrats ran their versions of intelligence reports.
The Democrats released their report to slam Trump, Pence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Rudy Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney, William Barr, Lev Parnas, Igor Furman and John Solomon.
The Republicans released their report to slam Biden, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Christopher Steele, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Al Green (D-TX), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), the media, Hillary Clinton, Cloudstrike and others.
Nadler and Collins will be able to question the witnesses for equal periods of time as determined by the chair for up to 45 minutes for each side. During these periods, the chair and the ranking member can yield to committee counsel to question witnesses if they choose.
After that, additional rounds of questioning by the chair and ranking member or staff counsel are possible. Then each lawmaker on the committee is expected to get five minutes to ask questions of the witnesses.